There is something fishy about the Egyptian cable-cut arrests

When I read that three men in a dinghy had been arrested for planning to cut a submarine optical cable, I shook my head and went back to sleep. I mean, this sounded like the plot of a really bad television show, at best. I have covered optical networks (and the industry around it) for about a decade and a half, and I have never come across anything remotely similar to this claim.

If the Egyptian military’s claims are accurate, the cause of the most recent damage to SEA-ME-WE-4 would represent a highly unusual event. Deliberate damage to undersea cables is extremely rare—anchors, fishing, and geological events (such as earthquakes) are by far the most common causes of cable cuts. While there are more than 100 reported submarine cable faults each year, most damage goes unnoticed by end users, as carriers can usually route traffic around outages on other systems, both submarine and terrestrial.

The arrests are bringing up more questions than answers. For instance:

Is this a new kind of ransom scheme/spin on the piracy that plagues the waters off the African coasts, especially near Somalia?

Was this terrorism, and if yes, what does it mean for the world’s communication infrastructure?

Why didn’t they get a ship and drop an anchor, drag it across the cable and say, oops, we did it again.